Ian Thompson, who saw the blaze, said: “I was driving back from a day out and there was a circular straw bale on fire. I stopped to see if I could put it out and there were two other straw bales also on fire and not one fire which was connected up. I can’t believe there was any way it could not have been started deliberately.”

Mr Thompson called the fire service and tried to put the fires out himself, but he said they “got out of hand quite quickly”.

Garry Collins, head of protection and prevention at Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service, recently said: “Open fires can quickly spread and endanger life.

“Some of these incidents were not intentional but if you are somewhere and a fire starts, it is hugely important that you call 999 as quickly as possible to prevent a small fire becoming a bigger fire.